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Téra is a twenty-two-minute slice of searing ‘n’ baying wall noise from Bordeaux-based Raté. The cover art features a somewhat abstract picture of clouds and the top of a building, and this is rather fitting, as the ‘wall’ does have a rather rushing feel through the buffeting air/ thick clouds quilty about it.
Here we have two dense & compacted slices of walled noise from this Chianti Ohio project. Each runs at around the twenty-minute mark, and each is an effective enclosing & bass-edged example of the wall form
The Swamp Mansion of the Crocodile People / Hellfire & Honeycomb is a walled noise split with a dense to moody sound, and a southern gothic theme. It features Poland’s Sado Rituals with a nearly thirty-minute track, and three tracks from the rather mysterious Polarlicht running between seven and nine minutes.
Avari is a C90 album from the French harsh to wall noise project Trou. It takes in four Roman numeral titled ‘walls’, which all have a decidedly clattering, raw, at points atmospheric quality.
Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (aka Adéla Jeste Nevecerela) is a late 1970s Czech film, which is a pulp parody/ proto steampunk edged blend of comedy, mystery, and man-eating plant horror. It regards a ‘world famous’ American gumshoe going to Prague, looking for a lost dog and finding a master criminal/ uncovering his dastardly plans. Here from Deaf Crocodile is a region one/ A Blu-ray release of the film, including a new scan of the picture, a commentary track, and a few other extras.
Over his forty-year career, and nearing one hundred feature-length films, America's low-budget horror/ sci-fi director Mark Polonia has tackled most sub-genres. But one he’s never attempted, until now, is the giallo. The Girl Who Wore Yellow Lace is his first stab (pun very much intended) at the genre, and it’s colour-filtered, black gloved/ masked killer-bound affair with a few fleshy moments. Here from SRS Cinema is a DVD release of the film, including in a director's commentary.
Deep Blue Sea is a late 90s sharksploitation film, which sits at the larger budgeted end of the genre, featuring stars such as Samuel L. Jackson, Stellan Skarsgård, and L L Cool J. The film is set in an isolated sea-based research facility, where scientists are enlarging the brain/intelligence of three sharks to try and find a cure for Alzheimer's, but when a sea storm sweeps in, things go more than a little wrong. The film features largely realistic-looking shark /effects, some rewarding thrills, sharks stalking down flooded corridors, and a few moments of gore. Here from Arrow Video- both in the UK and Stateside- is a new release of the film. The release comes as either a UHD or Blu-ray, featuring a new crisp 4 K scan, two new commentary tracks, and a selection of new archive extras.
Sephiroth's seminal Cathedron gets the deluxe reissue treatment in both 2xLP and CD formats this spring from Cyclic Law. 26 years since its initial release, Cathedron still stands as a classic in the dark ambient genre, and this reissue aims to make even more lifelong fans. Limited in both CD and 2xLP formats (300 of each), collectors looking to add a crisp, clean classic to their collection should snatch this up.
Here’s a five-Blu-ray box set looking at the early work of Brussels-born director Chantal Akerman, who is seen as an important female director, as well as a key figure in European arthouse cinema. Over a nearly fifty-year period, she directed forty films (short, medium and feature-length)- these spanned fiction, documentary, musical comedy and literary adaptation. Her work is often very personal, with feminist and LGBTQ+ leanings. The set focuses on the years 1967 and 1978, taking in fourteen films, new commentary tracks, and a selection of largely archive-based extras.
The Magic Forest is a three-disc, sixty-one-track compilation focusing on late 60s to mid-70s pastoral, psychedelic, and funky folk/ lite folk-rock. It’s a sequel to 2022’s compilation Deep In The Woods, which, like this collection, was compiled/ arranged by Richard Norris(Beyond The Wizards Sleeve/The Grid). This new collection focuses more on the singer-songwriter side of things.
You'd be forgiven for doing a double-take when reading the title of this particular album. No, it isn’t a re-issue of Eno’s seminal ambient record Music for Airports, but instead is the latest work from experimental artist Pierce Warnecke, who has dug deep into his box of ambient electronica to create an imagined world predicated on one that is wholly real. Music from Airports is an ode to that most utilitarian of spaces – the airport, universally characterised by an absence of atmosphere and personality, and one that is reviled by the artist himself. Using hastily captured musical soundbites (he refrains from calling them field recordings) taken from airports across the world, the US-born artist has moulded a set of electronic soundscapes that deftly employ his (sometimes) trademark minimalism underlined by repetitive looping, deep listening and glitch.
Assault!: Jack The Ripper is a tonally unbalancing/troubling blend of awkward romantic drama and sexualized serial killer thriller/horror. The mid 70’s Japanese film is part of Nikkatsu Studios Roman Porno cycle- sitting in the sub-genre of Violent Porno. Here from 88 Films is a new Blu-Ray release of the film- taking an HD scan of the film, a new commentary track and an intro.
Here from 88 Films is a Blu-ray box set collecting together the three Erotic Ghost Story films- 1990 Hong Kong Cat III films, which blend softcore, fantasy and light horror elements. Each film gets its own disc, featuring a 2k scan, commentary tracks, and a few archive extras.
Je t'aime, Je t'aime ( I Love You, I Love You) is a late ’60s French film that gives a very different/distinctive take on the Romantic drama form. It’s a sci-fi film which sees a suicidal man getting involved in a secret time machine project, which sees him reliving his romance with a decidedly free-spirited woman. The film has a decidedly shifting/ at times cut-up quality, as we move back and forth on the man's timeline, all making for a picture that equally intrigues and frustrates. Here from Radiance is a Blu-ray release of the film, featuring a 2k scan, and a selection of new/ archive extras.
Rulers of the City is a poliziotteschi thriller directed by Fernando Di Leo in 1976. It is being made available here in the UK on Blu-ray in a 4K restoration based on the original negative.
Optimistic, personal, and exploratory, Rivet's Peck Glamour has Mika Hallbäck returning to Editions Mego with new focus and drive after a traumatic few years. 2023's L+P-2 was the artist experiencing chaos and tumult in his life and expressing this though a darker path. Here with Peck Glamour, Rivet has spent time with the losses and is using what he's learned to push forward and take his project in new directions. Bright, fun, and engaging, this newest on Editions Mego sets the scene for better days and happier times.
Every Life Is A Light is the eleventh full-length album from Joni Void- aka Montréal-based French-British producer Jean Néant. The twelve-track affair blends strands of indietronica, musique concrete sampling, hauntological ambience, and trip-hop beats- for a decidedly heady ‘n’ wonky ride.
Trill Scan offers up an eleven-track journey into hazed techno beats, murkily pulsing synth tones/electronics, and atmospheric instrumental/ vocal tone sampling. It’s the seventh album from Montreal, Canada-based music producer and musician T. Gowdy.
The Exu are a Leeds-based jazz trio that mixes bebop and free jazz- taking influences from grunge, death metal, hip hop, & experimental music. As far as I can gather this self-titled CD album on Discus Music is the band's debut release, which features twelve tracks.
Floating Similarities is the meeting of two European improv-focused guitarists- Belgian’s Dirk Serries and France’s Christian Vasseur. The seven-track CD album shifts between the abstract, manic, and moody.
Birna is the sixth studio album from Norwegian trad/folk combo Wardruna, formed in 2003 by Einar Selvik and Gaahl, of Gorgoroth fame with Lindy-Fay Hella. Gaahl would eventually leave the band after their second album Runaljod – Yggdrasil was released in 2013. Since then the band have expanded beyond the original three-piece and is currently a four-piece with Eilif Gunderson on Neverlur, Bronselur and Bukkehorn, and John Stenersen on Moraharpe. They also have four backing vocalists. The band plays music that is based on Norse culture and esoteric traditions and they use traditional Nordic instruments.
I realized almost immediately that the title, Enjoy Country Music, must be ironic. The two-man line up is credited with double bass/mixing and Modular synths/amps / 15-meter tape loops respectively. This Italian duo has released this new collaborative cassette on Torta Editions, both musicians have been individually active with various independent and official releases within the last fifteen years.
Here’s another good reason to give Radiance even more of your hard-earned money: Nothing is Sacred: Three Heresies by Luis Buñuel is one of those ‘no-brainers’ for those interested in film and its history, and indeed surrealist art. I’m only reviewing promo discs, but as usual, I can guarantee that the boxset proper will be a thing of beauty, and also includes a 80-page book. The set has three discs, with three films: Viridiana (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962), Simon of the Desert (1965), and an overwhelming amount of extras - genuinely stunning. It’s simply a great set and you don’t need to read further. But here you are.
Russian World severs up two slices of clanking, snapping, whizzing, and grinding electro-industrial soundscaping, which are both urgent and atmospheric.